Details

Five empty wooden chairs, of no particular style, in a line in a gallery. We (the audience) wait. Four women walk into the room carrying crosscut handsaws. One carries a cello. They each stand beside a chair, bow and sit down. The four then start to saw into the legs of the chairs that they are sitting on to the accompaniment of the Cello. Each has their own rhythm, each starts on a different leg each has their own style. Never leaving the chair, their sitting position changes, naturally, shifting their weight away or towards the viewers and each other. The piece ebbs and flows, rises and falls. The audience is free to come and go, though it's pleasing to stay where they are, sitting comfortably in their own chair, knowing that theirs at least will remain stable. And when they've finished and gone, only the lopsided chairs, the bits of wood and the sawdust remain. In Dutch there is an expression ?sawing the legs of your own chair' that means that you undermine yourself you stop yourself from doing something. You weaken the chair you weaken yourself - destroying the chair destroying yourself.